Artelia was a pioneer in the detailed mathematical modelling of river and maritime floods and has designed innumerable protection schemes. It has also specialised in assessing and reducing the vulnerability of public and private property and implementing structural and non-structural risk-reduction measures, concerning critically important urban areas and industrial sites in particular.

Artelia is frequently involved in the drawing up of flood risk assessments, prevention and disaster contingency plans and cost-benefit analyses of risk reduction measures. It also helps to set up flood warning, flood forecasting, alarm and crisis management systems as well as resilience measures in urban areas. Artelia is a major innovator in these fields.

Artelia has been accredited by the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Transport to perform safety studies of hydraulic structures. This accreditation, to perform monitoring on embankments and dams, attests to the skills and dedication of the teams working daily alongside operators, especially on nearly 40 class A or B large dams owned by Electricité de France. Numerous hydrological and dam break wave studies have also been performed in order to prevent risks related to managing these major structures.

The programme to mitigate urban risks in Haiti involves implementing a standard national methodology, raising the capacity of national and local authorities, improving knowledge and maps representing risks, and drawing up risk prevention plans for the most vulnerable urban areas.

Sur, a city with a hot desert climate (on average 80 mm of rainfall per year), was severely damaged by two cyclones in 2007 and 2010, which produced rainfall in excess of 300 and 400 mm in the space of 24 hours.